This was a rather busy week for me, the kind that goes WOOSH! by you and you wonder “wow, is it Friday again?”. The good hting is that I could finish the Valentine’s pic I w

Thank you to all of you that support me along the year!

as working on, and I am rather pleased with the outcome, though I could not keep my original objective of painting it all pink in honor to the date. All pink compositions hurt my eyes, though I do like pink quite a lot!

The knot work seems to be a big hit, though I have to clarify that it is a rather simple basic design, I just duplicated it to add more complexity. Maybe I should do a small tutorial on how to do simple knotwork. It really is not as hard as it might seem. What do you think?

Remember I mentioned I was taking a workshop on cover art design? It was wonderful and I did learn a lot, not only about the topic at hand, but also about techniques that I never use in Photoshop, so yes, it was wonderful. One of the ladies that taught it was the ever super talented Cris Griffin. A lot of people expressed interest in the workshop though they didn’t know

about it on time. So if you are one of those that would like to take a similar workshop, pass by her site and let her know! I wouldn’t mind to take another class. I am such a fan of learning!

So let me show you some of the examples of the work we produced, some of them rather simple (though I didn’t know how to use the tools) and others more complex.

Hi there! I thought it was time I’d show some art. I am working on several pieces at the time, neglecting them here and there due to other things happening in life, like day job, the Hamerfall issue and a wonderful workshop I’m taking on cover art for books, which I will be posting about later, when I have my homewroks done 🙂

WIP Valentine's image. Copyrighted to Constanza Ehrenhaus.

So right now, priority one is to finish the Valentine’s day image by the 14th, I hope I can do it. I was completely blocked when I tried to start painting, so it took me to days just to lay colors on it. As you might know, I really don’t like all pink compositions, I tried to do it, I promise! but I just couldn’t. So I settled for a pastels look, with some lilac to tone down the pinks. I still have to decide what colors to add to the knotwork. And there will be flowers and bows in it too, getting a look as in Freyja

I also have been working on and off in a Phoenix image, which I want to match my Oriental Dragon which was done years ago. Well, I think it is time for it’s feminine counterpart. I am planning to have them matching the colors of my new living room look so it should be a sort of muted colorful bird. This is where I am right now:

Fenix WIP. Copyrighted to Constanza Ehrenhaus.

I think I got myself into deep work by choosing a feathered creature. I know I will not like feathers when I finish it!

And my other work in progress is for the famous Naked with jewels challenge which has been neglected for too long. I am in the initial stage. I’ve sketched up a few, chosen one, and I know the girls would rather another sketch which was more enticing, but I think the one I chose is more my style. I am posting it publicly just to push myself to actually go past the sketch stage!

My naked guy is a mesoamerican man, chosen as the reincarnation of a God, waiting to be sacrificed.

Nakkid and Jewels. WIP. Copyrighted to Constanza Ehrenhaus.

I imagine this drawing with a beautiful golden light, a lot of gold and multicolored feathers…. oh noes! Feathers again!!

One last thing that I think it’s important to add. All the works shown here are copyrighted to me, this means that you cannot redistribute them, modify them, reproduce them nor commercialize them without my written consent. I didn’t think this I needed to say this, but recent events make it clear that this is not so obvious.

And no. Just because I decide to show you my work on the internet does not mean that is free for you to take. Thank you very much for respecting my hard work.

It is hard to know, it is really hard to notice when you are getting “there”, because it is a continuous process. It is not like you woke up one day and you say “Hey! I’ve succeeded!” It is more like “Hu? when did this happen?” because you were so busy working trying to evolve as an artist that you had no idea that you were getting there. As for me, I am not nearly “there” where some fantastic artists that I admire are. I am many many miles away from their awesomeness, professionalism and skills. But I am slowly working toward it. And work is yielding fruit.

This month (yes, February has just started) I got to be front page in EMG zine! 😀 Yay the Holy Cow!! (I love that piece). And I got a tutorial on how to draw stained glass published in Amazing Events by Fantasyana. Yay!!! Holy Cow again!! :XD: The tut has been released first exclusively for the magazine. It will be published on line later *just an incentive to get the magazine* 😉 And as lagniappe, my art has been stolen for the first time today. Now… under other circumstances I’d be outraged, but this are special circumstances and I can’t help but feel the irony. Let me explain.

Melissa, Meredith, Louisa and I (and my contribution was certainly the most humble one since I had to work on my day job all day today, you should have seen how those other girls worked their butts off) have been working hard on get loads and loads of stolen art identified and notify the artists affected. The art was taken by Hammerfall, an RPG in Facebook. You can read the whole story here So we spent hours and hours going through the super tedious process of opening hundreds of folders, looking at the art, tineye it, try to find the original author, record all the data, notify the artists (yes, I’d rather be drawing, but it had to be done, eh?). And if you want to read a terrific analysis of the importance of the community, go to Louisa’s journal. So the news were made public, the guy was warned about putting down the stolen art… and guess what? He replaced one of the stolen pieces with my Rill! Now when Mel told me I just started laughing (more like a mad’s scientist laughter… hey! I am a mad scientist! :XD:) because it just seems so ironic. I mean, after all the hours put into that, we are closely watching this guy… and he goes and takes one of MY pieces… I mean… is this the divine revenge of some kind of dark lord?